March 20, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

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A recent Finale blog post listed several Academy Award-nominated films in which Finale played a role. Each year I create a similar list by querying friends at popular music preparation companies. Because of my informal data gathering process, some movies fly under my radar (especially if their budgets don’t allow for a high-profile music prep house). This year, Whiplash was one such film.

Whiplash, of course, was a “sleeper” film, made with a relatively small budget, yet garnering five Oscar nominations and three wins, for Actor in a Supporting Role (J.K. Simmons), Film Editing, and Sound Mixing.

I recently had the good fortune to connect with Justin Hurwitz, composer of the Whiplash score.

I’ve read that you and writer/director Damien Chazelle were Harvard classmates, and collaborated on Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. How did you become involved in Whiplash, and how did you and Damien communicate during its creation?

Ever since Damien wrote the script for Whiplash in 2011, I knew that I would eventually score it, but it took a couple of years before I actually started working on it. First, Damien made a short version of the film, which didn’t have any original music, just the titular Hank Levy piece, “Whiplash.” Once the feature version secured financing, I started working as the movie ramped up towards production.

In the original script, all of the jazz pieces throughout the story were standards — pieces Damien played as a high school jazz drummer. My job would be to write the score, i.e. the dramatic underscore, not unlike a composer does for a typical movie. But a little over a month before the jazz had to be pre-recorded, the producers determined that they couldn’t afford any licenses beyond “Whiplash” and “Caravan,” so all of the other jazz had to be original. It was a scramble to get all of the original jazz charts written and arranged. Damien sent me classic recordings to listen to as models for some of the charts.

When I’m composing or orchestrating, we’re communicating constantly by email. I do all of my composing on a real piano, and send piano demos as mp3 attachments. He’ll either say “no” or he’ll give a note. We work back and forth, back and forth, until he’s happy with something at the compositional level. Then, when I’m orchestrating, I send him the mp3s that come out of Finale, and it’s the same process of back-and-forth emails. We both kind of live in our Gmail inboxes.

“When I Wake,” the 30s jazz recording Andrew identifies while on a date in a pizza parlor, is actually a piece you created to evoke that era. Was this decision driven by the fact that licensing a classic tune would have been too expensive?

Yeah, exactly. The producers and music supervisor did an amazing job stretching the tiny budget they had. It just made more sense for this piece, and others, to be originals.

I think in the script it was an Artie Shaw tune playing on the radio. When I was composing things for Damien on the piano, I was writing to that era (late ‘30s) but also thinking about the scene. The scene is Andrew and Nicole’s first date, so even though the music is diegetic, it had to underscore the characters starting to fall for each other.

Can you share some specifics of how you made your jazz arrangements evoke certain eras?

A lot of it is about textures, and voicings, and other little things like choices of mutes. The most old-fashioned arrangement I did was “No Two Words” that plays at the end of the scene between Fletcher and Andrew in the bar. The lead trumpet part is full of shakes. The other trumpets and trombones use straight mutes, and I notated a bunch of scoops for the trombones. I love to write notes in the score to the players, like “sweet old time vibrato” in the clarinet parts. Then a producer, Nicholas Britell, ran some custom filters on the track to give it that crackly vinyl sound.

The “Overture” was really fun to chart. I took the tune which I had originally written for Fletcher to play at the piano, and arranged it in the style of a wild ‘60s-era Buddy Rich piece. It was all about the textures and voicings. Saxes running around in unison or wailing dissonantly on high notes a step apart. The crunch of the trombone voicings. The piano and electric bass in unison at times, when they aren’t comping. This piece has solo sections, and I always love being able to slash a bunch of bars to let a player go nuts.

There’s one scene where we hear Fletcher play, and it’s a departure: a quiet piano tune in a small combo. In it we recognize music heard throughout the film. Can you talk about that theme and how you went about manipulating it?

I first composed that tune as Fletcher’s song, and as you say, it was meant to be unlike the rest of the jazz in the movie. It’s tender, designed to betray Fletcher’s vulnerability. We planned for that to be the only time that tune appears in the movie, but then Damien and I started finding other places to use it. There was a scene that ended up getting cut where we see Fletcher at home, eating dinner alone, putting on a record, and getting teary eyed while he sits on the couch and listens to the music. We thought it would be a cute idea for that record to be an old fashioned big band arrangement of that same tune. Ultimately, that scene got cut, but I think it’s on the DVD.

Next, Damien suggested that I use the same tune to score the scene where Andrew meets with the lawyer and gets dismissed from Shaffer Conservatory (known as “Dismissed” on the soundtrack album). Damien wanted the score here to be poignant and introspective. I played around with a lot of ways to twist that melody, and found that moving it from minor to major, ironically, made it sadder in a way.

So that was the first use of that tune in the score (dramatic underscore). From there, I kept finding more modalities where it could slip into other score cues. The tune ended up finding its way into almost every cue. The score pretty much exclusively follows Andrew’s perspective, and helps us feel what Andrew’s feeling, so I liked the idea that each cue could also have a little bit of Fletcher in it.

The last use of that tune was the “Overture,” which plays at the beginning of the movie when Andrew walks through the city, and then again during the end credits. The plan originally was to use a plaintive arrangement of the tune, in the vein of the “Dismissed” cue, but then one of the film’s producers, Jason Reitman, asked if it could be fun and jazzy. Damien suggested that I arrange it in the style of something the Buddy Rich Big Band would play. I put it back in a minor key, and made it sexy, brash, and a bit Latin, really leaning on the ninths.

IMDB credits Dominik Hauser with musical preparation on Whiplash. Where did he take over?

There wasn’t enough money in the music budget for a full-fledged copyist, so I did most of the copying work for the score session. I was extracting and formatting the parts, using Finale of course, and handing Dominik PDFs to proofread and prepare for the recording session. He did a terrific job, and also saved the day by calculating the BPM of a click track when all of us were too dumb to figure out the math.

Do you use Linked Parts?

I do. It’s a great feature. Just the other day, I was recording background vocals, and used the Linked Parts feature to pull the SATB staves out of a score, and into one document.

How does Finale fit into your workflow – do you, for example, sketch on paper or in a DAW?

I don’t use a sequencer or sketch paper. I compose on the piano, and show everything to Damien either by emailing piano demos, or playing for him in person. Once he loves something at the compositional level, I orchestrate in Finale. I’m really old school and don’t use a MIDI keyboard. I input everything by hand (mouse), with my real piano by my side to hear a voicing or countermelody.

Whiplash didn’t require orchestration per se, but the other movies Damien and I have done, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, and the movie we are currently working on, La La Land, are very orchestration-intensive. I don’t hand off any sketches, so I use Finale to get us from the piano demo to the final orchestral charts.

What was your first introduction to Finale?

At Harvard, our professors didn’t let us use any notation software. We had to write and orchestrate everything by hand. This is partly because Harvard is old-fashioned and stuffy, but my professors did have a point. Orchestrating by hand helps you connect with the music in a different way. You think more horizontally. You think about countermelody and counterpoint differently.

Later in college, one of my classmates tipped me off to this thing called Finale and it blew my mind how fast and simple it made everything. I haven’t written by hand in years, but I’m glad I have that background, because it definitely influences how I think about orchestration.

Have a Finale tip you can share?

In the Simple Entry menu, I like to change the keyboard shortcuts. I don’t like having to hit two buttons, like command+something. When possible, I’d rather just hit a letter or a number. A lot of keys on the keyboard either aren’t assigned as shortcuts, or are assigned to commands I rarely use, so I like to change stuff around so that the functions I use most often have the simplest shortcuts.

What do you like about Finale?

I love how realistic the playback sounds. Because I don’t use a sequencer, and because I show the orchestrations to Damien in Finale, it’s really important that what comes out of Finale sounds good. It’s not just the samples, but the way the notes are shaped to sound like they’re being played by humans. A sustained wind note, for example, has beautiful shape in Finale. It will grow and decay just right. A lot of times you don’t want to have to put a hairpin in the score, because it’s not called for; you just want the subtle shape that a human would naturally give to it, and Finale does that just right.

Also, the balance of the orchestra is spot on. The ensemble sounds like it’s in a real space, and the instruments blend together well. Sometimes we have to have people put my orchestrations into a sequencer, and it takes lots of finessing to get stuff sounding as human as it does in Finale. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Damien say, “Make it sound more like the Finale version.”

Obviously, there’s a lot to love about Finale in terms of how powerful and flexible it is from a notational standpoint, but for me, the playback quality is particularly important.

What are you working on now? What’s next?

I’m working on Damien’s next film, La La Land, a song and dance musical which we’re making for Lionsgate. I’m composing and orchestrating the songs and score. The movie shoots in the fall, so I’m working on the pre-recorded musical numbers. There are a bunch of songs and a couple of fantasy ballets, and there will be a fair amount of dramatic underscore after the movie has shot. It’s all lush, romantic, 90-piece orchestra – so I’m in orchestration heaven these days.

Thanks again to Justin for sharing his time.

Have you experienced “Whiplash” yet? Share your reaction with us by clicking on “Comments” below.

March 5, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

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Like many readers of the Finale blog, I am keenly aware of the challenges and joys involved in juggling a professional, musical, and family life. Often when trying to schedule my seven-piece rock band, I ask myself why I couldn’t have been content with a power trio.

While at the NAMM music industry trade show this January, I met Venus Rey Jr., who is a lawyer, published author, and university lecturer on such varied fields as philosophy and art; he also writes for – and records – full orchestra and choir (check out this YouTube excerpt with 150 performers). Both humbled and intrigued as to how one person could actually accomplish all this, I was delighted when he agreed to be interviewed.

Scott Yoho: Is such a diverse career more common in Mexico than it is in the states? If not, how did this come about?

Venus Rey Jr: I think this diversity is uncommon not only in Mexico, but everywhere else. I was lucky to grow up in a home where culture and art were very important. My father was a conductor. He studied at Columbia University in New York, and he began to give me music lessons when I was six. I remember he had lots of records and scores so, when I was a child, I had the chance to hear all those records from great composers and performers, and at the same time I could read in the scores the music I was listening to. I think this opened my ears.

I discovered how Beethoven, Wagner or Brahms, for example, wrote their music, orchestrated their works, managed the orchestra, combined instruments and gave color to the sound. I learned music in the old manner: up to the end of the 19th century, musicians used to learn music at home from their fathers who were themselves musicians who learned music from their fathers. It was an art transmitted from fathers to sons. This is exactly how I became a musician.

On the other hand, my love for literature was transmitted to me from my mother. She has always been an avid reader. I remember her reading all the time. My home was full of books so, following my mother’s example, I had the chance to read and, from an early stage, I started writing.

When I was 18, I had to choose what to study in the university. I chose law and I became a lawyer. I didn’t choose music because I felt at that time that I was already a musician. After law I continued my studies and enrolled in the philosophy program, where I earned a master’s degree. I was so involved at that time in the academic life that I began assisting some of my professors. Finally I became a lecturer myself. I have published several papers on constitutional law and philosophy of law.

SY: You began composing in elementary school. What where your earliest inspirations?

VRJ: I think my first and greatest inspiration was the music and life of Beethoven. I got to know his symphonies and his piano sonatas very well because I had the scores. I think there are two levels of music hearing: with and without knowing thoroughly what exactly happens in the score. Of course if you are a musician, you have a better idea of what is going on in the music you are listening to. But even if you are a musician, if you know and understand the score, the aesthetic experience of listening is deeper and stronger. I had the fortune of being able to read music from a very early age; and being able to read music allowed me to write as well. Of course those compositions were naive, but somehow you have to start, and so I did.

SY: What were the circumstances around the recording of Misa Guadalupana (a symphonic Mass written for orchestra, choir and soprano soloist) made in Rome last May?

VRJ: I have a friend in Mexico who is half Italian and grew up in Italy. There she had a friend who became a conductor and music teacher. There is a small town near Rome called Fara in Sabina. They have a chamber orchestra there, a very good orchestra. My friend introduced me to this Italian conductor and I showed him some of my work. Maestro Francesco Lupi is the conductor of this orchestra. He told me that he was interested in performing Misa Guadalupana. In order to accomplish this, it was necessary to increase the number of musicians. So this orchestra joined forces with members of the Santa Croce Orchestra in Rome. Finally, four choirs joined us and we had a force of 70 instrumentalists and 80 singers.

Mtro. Lupi was supported by the city of Fara in Sabina and somehow he managed to get the support of the Italian Senate, which is a great honor. Having the Senate support, I asked the Mexican Embassy at the Holy See for further support. Everything worked out and so Misa Guadalupana was performed in two concerts: the first one at the Abbey of Santa Maria di Farfa, Fara in Sabina, May 25th, and the second one at the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, May 30th. Santa Maria di Farfa is one of the best-preserved medieval abbeys in Italy. San Pietro in Vincoli is a magnificent basilica next to the Roman Coliseum, and is the home of “Moses”, the great sculpture by Michelangelo.

SY: You’ve recorded four CDs of sacred music for symphony orchestra, choir and soloist. Especially given your diverse interests, what is it that draws you to this particular form of expression again and again?

VRJ: Among the various genres of classical music I believe sacred music is the one that allows you to reach higher means of expression. Although I am a believer, I must confess that I am not a very religious person. I write sacred music because I think this is the “king genre” in music, even above opera. It is not that I think there is less value in other genres. Of course if you listen to a Verdi opera, you immediately sense you are before a great work of art. Let’s think about La traviata. After all, it is a work that has to do with erotic love, jealousy, envy and human passions; these elements make La traviata one of the most loved opera of all times.

What I am trying to highlight is that there is a difference between making music for entertainment – on one hand – and making music for God, on the other hand. It does not have to do with the intrinsic value of music, after all there are examples of poorly written sacred music and sublime music intended to entertain. But, the bottom line is that with sacred music you are in the realm of spirituality. In this sense I believe the sacred genre allows you to reach higher levels of expression.

SY: On more than one occasion you have had success submitting your scores to the Mexican Congress asking for governmental funds to record and perform. Many readers would be fascinated to learn more about that process.

VRJ: Art is a very serious matter in Mexico. I could say that there is an obligation for every Mexican State (we have 31 States) to support and sustain a symphony orchestra. Since the falling of the Soviet Bloc, we have been receiving musicians and artists from Eastern Europe. It has been a great contribution for our orchestras. Every year the Federal Congress assigns a budget for art and culture, and this is how orchestras are kept and artists are paid. But the Congress is also interested in supporting the Mexican artists and every year launches a call to accomplish this purpose. Of course it is not easy to obtain this support.

In 2012 I presented a project to the Congress and had the chance to explain it to the members of the Art & Culture Committee. I’ve been writing music since I was young and the members of the Committee were aware of that. In fact some of them knew some of my work well. Even though my music speaks for itself, I must say I have been very lucky because my work has been supported by the Congress since 2013.

Gathering so many musicians and singers, soloist, conductors, recording engineers, etc., and hiring a venue to perform… well this is very expensive. It could not be done without the support of the government. But money is never enough so additionally I have searched for private support; fortunately I have been able to get it.

SY: What was your first introduction to Finale?

VRJ: Before using Finale, I used to compose my music by making a sequence with Performer. I’m talking about the early 90’s. Mark of the Unicorn also had software for scores: Professional Composer. I started using this software, but it was so odd and limited that I really hated it. The first time we performed Misa Guadalupana (May, 2000) I needed to put all the music on paper: the score for the conductor and every single part for every musician. Because we didn’t have much time I realized that I was not going to be able to learn how to use a new software program and make the score all by myself.

Someone suggested that I hire an editor. I did not hire one editor, but three; I was really running out of time. When they gave me the printed score it looked so neat, clear and beautiful. They told me they used Finale and I realized I had to get this software and learn how to use it. It is the only software I have ever used to write and edit my own scores. Someone told me about Sibelius, but I didn’t try it because I was –and still am– very satisfied with Finale.

SY: What are you working on now?

VRJ: I just finished a couple of weeks ago a full symphony with choir. It is called The 5th of May Symphony. It is really a big work scored for two flutes, alto flute, piccolo flute, two oboes, English horn, E flat clarinet, two B flat clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, five horns, four trumpets, three trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, tubular bells, gong, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, piano, harp, mixed choir, soprano soloist and strings. It has five movements and its duration is around 70 minutes. It will be premiere this year on May 5th.

I must say it was written using only Finale. No other software was used to create this score. When I started using Finale, I used to compose this way: first I made a sequence with the Performer software; then I converted this sequence into enigma MIDI file; finally I imported this MIDI file into Finale and edited the score. This was slow and dull.

What I do now is better and faster. I play the piano looking for ideas. If I like an idea I record it with my phone, so I have an audio file in case I forget the idea. And then I write directly in Finale using a 49-key keyboard. As I write the tracks, new ideas come to my mind, new melodies and counterpoint. And that is why I love Finale: because I see and hear everything, and this allows me to have total control over my music.

Right now I’m working on a piece for orchestra and chorus. This year is the 70th anniversary of the German surrender in WWII. This historical event is the subject of my new work. This piece will be a memorial for the victims of this war. It will be sung in different languages, those of the countries at war: English, German, Russian, French, Italian, etc., and, of course, there will be lines in Yiddish. The premiere of this work will be in Mexico City, during the summer.

How can you help but be inspired by the idea of one man recording 150 musicians playing his music thousands of miles from his home? Sometimes I need to set my sights a little higher.

February 26, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

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Are you done thinking about the Academy Awards until next year?

I thought I was until a coworker shared this fantastic podcast, from Song Exploder, featuring Alexandre Desplat. In it the composer describes the orchestration of the main theme from his Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated “The Imitation Game” score, both in terms of orchestration as well as the emotional responses he sought to invoke.

I often find inspiration from hearing music creators describe their work; perhaps you do as well. Song Exploder is described as “a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.” This is clearly an intriguing project worth checking out.

February 17, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

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While I’m not as passionate about watching professional sports on TV as some of my friends, I always enjoy a good contest. Sometimes I wonder, however, about the investment we make in our state team, when few members of that team or its management are from our state.

That said, I don’t have any problem feeling a personal connection whenever I see the names of Finale users appear in the credits at the movie theater, and I always root for their films to win at the Academy Awards. Next Sunday I’ll have many opportunities to cheer.

While my research methods are not comprehensive, here are some of the films, nominated for multiple awards, in which Finale was used: The Grand Budapest Hotel (9 nominations), The Imitation Game (8), American Sniper (6), Interstellar (5), Into the Woods (4), and Unbroken (3). (To tell the truth, I’m a big Wes Anderson fan, and would cheer for The Grand Budapest Hotel even if Alexandre Desplat’s fine score had been prepared on grocery bags with a purple crayon.)

Other nominated films in which Finale played a role include: Big Hero 6, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Nightcrawler, Maleficent, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Gone Girl and The Lego Movie.

Do you enjoy prognosticating the Academy’s picks? I’ll give a free Finale T-shirt to whoever does the best job of predicting the winners of the following eight categories: Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Animated Feature Film, Music: Original Score and Music: Original Song.

To play, submit your list of winners as a comment to this post before midnight (Mountain Time) on 2/21/2015 (limit one entry per person, please). Good luck!

February 9, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

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Photo by Alejandro Guerrero

Parisian Robert Piéchaud really is a Renaissance man. Among his many and varied interests he’s a composer, a performer, and a veteran Finale software engineer, having created Human Playback, FinaleScript, Score Merger, the Medieval plug-in, and more. Clearly a proper interview on the Finale Blog is long overdue.

Recently Robert has returned his attention to music font design and today has released a greatly improved and expanded version of his beautiful font, November 2.0. So for today, we’ll limit our conversation to font matters.

Scott Yoho: Can you give us some background on the origin of the November music font?

Robert Piéchaud: November goes back to November 1998. I had decided to go to London for a couple of months to work with an engraver named Paul Ewers. In addition to engraving, I discovered something that piqued my interest even more: music font design. So I switched from engraving to font work – Paul was fine with that – and began reading scores and scanning them so that I could magnify the glyphs and examine them, enlarge them and print them out at as many as fifty times their size. I played with glyphs all day long!

At first I would scan existing characters and transform them into vectors – mathematical curves – which all digital fonts are. Fonts used to be made of pixels, or bitmaps, but then when the computers got more powerful you were able to define a glyph from points and the perfect curves that pass through them. And those curves are what make up a font. Once you free yourselves from the pixels you can go quite far with the curves. You can get really deep into the glyph; it’s fascinating. Then, little by little, manipulating curves on my own, I started designing a font: November!

SY: Did you perceive a need for new music fonts at the time?

RP: I guess you could say I just wasn’t satisfied with the other fonts I was seeing. There was little else on the market besides the standard default fonts. I felt the looks of these fonts weren’t enough alive. They were colder than what I personally wanted as a musician. I imagined a font you could say was human. Something that had really been engraved, etched with a stylus, like engravers used to do before we had computer notation. I wanted to be able to “feel” the ink.

And so I tried to reproduce the microscopic irregularities that scores had back then. My great source of inspiration was Universal Edition Wien around the turn of the 20th century, when they started to publish the Vienna School composers. The style is also present in Boosey & Hawkes scores from that time, maybe a little later. I find a great elegance in those scores; they make you want to play the music. And that’s what a font is about – giving the musician the desire to make music. It works much in same way as books: a book that is beautifully made, well-bound, printed on good paper – that’s a book you want to pick up and read!

SY: It’s certainly a beautiful font. What inspired the new version you’re releasing today?

RP: There were so many new characters to be added! November 2.0 has over 1000 symbols compared to the initial 330. And the thing is, font standards have changed since 1998; we used to need to have different versions for Mac and Windows, and there were different formats. Also, music fonts were limited to just a bit more than 200 characters… and it was all kind of messy. Now all fonts can be distributed via OpenType Format (OTF) and Unicode. And the other thing is that I’m now in touch with the SMuFL group.

SY: We should probably provide some background on SMuFL.

RP: Yes indeed! SMuFL stands for Standard Music Font Layout. It’s the future of music font design! It’s basically a subset of Unicode for music characters, a new attempt to define what the ideal music character set ought to be.

SY: And SMuFL greatly expands the number of characters previously available in a music font?

RP: Yes. SMuFL has the potential to offer access to thousands and thousands of different characters. The project started in 2013 and has reached its maturity now, thanks to the work of Daniel Spreadbury and many others, world-wide, who have been working hard on it. The goal is to cover the widest variety of music possible, assigning individual spaces in Unicode to each character. All of the characters you might need for music from medieval times to the avant-garde, and everything in between: it’s all there, or just about.

SY: How many spaces might this represent when it’s all finished?

RP: The core of SMuFL is 2,400 or so. And then there’s space for alternates, different styles and shapes, and even new characters. For a font to be SMuFL compliant, though, you don’t need to include all 2,400, although the more the better. It just depends on the kind of music your font represents. For today’s music font designers, SMuFL is a great source of inspiration, but it’s also very challenging to reach the optimal compliancy. November, for example, has a wide range from the early Renaissance to today’s music with over 1000 characters, which is really a lot; some are included in SMuFL, some are unique to November, and some like advanced chant notation are less present in the font because they are covered specifically in another project of mine, Medieval 2.0. And beyond the character map, SMuFL also specifies some important “metadata”, such as the stem-notehead attachment point and so on. Overall November 2.0 fully complies with SMuFL, and is actually the first commercial font to do so!

SY: Can you describe how November can be used with Finale?

RP: November 2.0 is a package that includes the font files, component files (with libraries and templates), and documentation. It’s compatible with Finale, and now also with Sibelius and LilyPond. It is true that Finale is the easiest way to use the font because Finale has been very advanced in terms of Unicode since version 2012. With Finale 2014, compatibility is even better. Also the legacy set of characters (from spaces 32 to 255) is shared between the fonts – that’s the unique hybrid structure of November 2.0. And the package even supports legacy versions of Finale, as old as Finale 2001! In one word it’s really straighforward in Finale to switch from the standard Maestro or Petrucci font to November 2.0.

February 5, 2015 | by Michael Good

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If you collaborate with musicians who use programs other than Finale, you have probably used MusicXML to share files back and forth. MusicXML is the industry-standard exchange format for digital sheet music, used by over 180 applications. MusicXML is also the best way to share Finale 2014 files with people using Finale 2011 or other earlier versions that aren’t supported by Finale 2014’s new file format.

There was quite a lot of MusicXML news at last month’s NAMM show. First, MOTU demonstrated MusicXML export working in their preview of Digital Performer 9. This was popular with the film composers and orchestrators in the audience. Digital Performer is one of the few major music programs that had not yet added MusicXML support. It is great to see that DP9 will join other DAWs like Logic, Cubase, and SONAR in making it easier to move music into Finale with much greater accuracy.

With MusicXML’s success in music notation exchange, people in the industry are wondering what else we can do with the format. How can MusicXML best help the music industry make the transition from printed to digital sheet music? What type of organizational structure is best suited to future stages of MusicXML development? Should it stay owned by MakeMusic, move to a consortium like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), or to an international standards body like the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)?

These topics were discussed on the last day of NAMM at a session hosted by the MIDI Manufacturers Association on “An Introduction to eScore Standardization Efforts in W3C and IEC.” I presented on the efforts at the W3C, and Mr. Taro Tokuhiro from Yamaha presented on the efforts at the W3C. Our presentations are now available online:

MusicXML remains crucial to MakeMusic’s products and services. It is a key feature of our Finale notation product line, and is essential to expanding the repertoire available for musicians to practice in our SmartMusic software. MusicXML support continues to improve in Finale 2014 and our Dolet 6 plug-ins for Finale and Sibelius.

If you are interested in MusicXML and can attend the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt, we plan to have another of our annual MusicXML community meetings there this year. If all goes well it will be on Friday afternoon, April 17. We will publish more information on the MusicXML blog and MusicXML forum as the details are finalized.

February 3, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

Composer Quest is a songwriting and music composition podcast created by freelance composer Charlie McCarron. Past episodes have featured Grammy-winning songwriters, music psychologists, rappers, video game composers, and even a polka expert.

When I learned of the Composer Quest, I thought it would be a cool resource to share with others on the Finale Blog, and was delighted when Charlie agreed to answer my questions about the podcast and his Finale use.

Scott Yoho: What did you set out to do in the creation of Composer Quest?

Charlie McCarron: I’ve been an avid podcast listener for years, and I wasn’t really satisfied with the composing podcasts out there at the time. Although I’m not a “radio personality” by nature, I figured I’d give podcasting a shot. One of my main goals with the show is to edit in as many music examples as possible, so listeners can hear exactly what techniques my composer guests are talking about.

Another goal with Composer Quest is to inspire listeners to practice their composing. So about every two months, I challenge them to complete composing “quests” based on a theme. For each quest, I ask an ensemble to put on a performance of the submissions from my listeners.

SY: What are some of the quests you’ve done?

CM: Some of my favorites include: writing a song based on a fortune cookie, creating a children’s Christmas musical (called “Elfluenza”), and co-composing with a randomized partner from across the globe. The most exciting quest was our MNKINO Film Score Fest last summer. We paired up filmmakers and composers to create new short films and original scores. Then an 18-musician ensemble performed the soundtracks live at our screening. We’ll be doing it again this summer, so if you’d like to be notified as soon as sign-ups are posted, please join my mailing list.

SY: Can you share a best experience story from the creation of the podcast?

CM: It’s always fun hearing from listeners who’ve randomly stumbled across Composer Quest. My favorite fan interaction has to be when a composer in Taiwan submitted his beautiful song for our fortune cookie quest. It turns out he had to go on an epic quest to find a fortune cookie in Taiwan (not as easy as you’d think), and he created a hilarious video documenting his adventure.

CM: I started working with Finale in junior high orchestra, thanks to my tech-savvy director, Ms. Deger. I composed a detective-style violin duet, which I’m sure is still as amazing as I thought it was at the time.

SY: What do you like about Finale?

CH: I appreciate that Finale caters to composers who sometimes need to go beyond basic notation. It might take a little researching, but there’s a way to do everything you need to in Finale.

SY: Can you share a Finale tip?

CM: I’ve recently realized the power of the copy/paste filter (“Edit Filter” and “Use Filter” in the Edit menu). It’s especially useful if you need to copy slurs, articulations, dynamics, or lyrics to other very similar parts.

I’d like to thank Charlie for providing this great resource, and for taking the time to talk about it with us. Charlie even kindly encourages fellow Finale users to tweet him @CharlieMcCarron.

January 24, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

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The Music and Sound Retailer is a magazine that reports on the musical instrument industry. Every fall, in anticipation of NAMM, they poll their readers – owners and operators of music instrument stores across the county – regarding the best products of the year.

Yesterday Finale 2014 was recognized as Music and Sound Retailer’s 2014 Best Book/Video/Software.

Pictured with the award above is, left to right, MakeMusic CEO Gear Fisher, Antonio Ferranti, vice president of sales at Alfred Music (distributor of MakeMusic products), and Fred Flowerday, vice president of product at MakeMusic.

“This award is particularly gratifying as it is comes from music products retailers in direct contact with consumers,” said Fred Flowerday. “They are keenly aware of both what defines a successful product and what delights thier customers.”

January 20, 2015 | by Scott Yoho

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Do you know the feeling of putting everything you’ve got into preparations for a recital or concert? That’s what the NAMM Show is to folks who make musical instruments, software, and accessories. Each January around 100,000 people from around the world wind up in a convention center in Anaheim, California to be the first to see the latest products and services created for musicians.

This year the show runs January 22- 25, and we’ll be there sharing the latest MakeMusic news.

If you plan to attend, please stop by and say hello at the MakeMusic booth, #6210. If you’re not attending, we’ll share some highlights with you via Facebook and Twitter.

Have a guitar manufacturer you’d like me to check out? Let me know by clicking on “Comments” below.

January 13, 2015 | by Kelby Stine

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Have you ever needed to turn several Finale files into PDFs?

You could open each file and choose File > Export > PDF, but if you have a lot of files, that can become laborious. A PDF printer can help.

You can install a PDF printer to print to PDF from any application in Mac or Windows. The PDF printer will add a new virtual printer to your list of installed printers. When you print any document to the PDF printer, it will create a new PDF file on your computer instead of printing it to a piece of paper in a physical machine.

The key benefit of a PDF printer is that you can use it with the batch printing script in FinaleScript to process multiple files. Most PDF printers have settings that allow you to determine where the files will be saved, and just like a regular printer, you can change the page size settings in the printer to match the Finale file page size.

While there are many to choose from, here’s a few I’ve had success with: